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The first thing she notices is the cough. It starts slight, a little raspy, and Shaw decides to have a movie day at her place instead of their planned excursion to Central Park. They start with Ris’s favorite, Die Hard, since it’s also Shaw’s favorite and Finch isn’t here to give her shit about letting a kid watch Bruce Willis rampage all over Alan Rickman’s face. Nearly a quarter of the way through, Shaw notices Ris’s eyelids start to droop. “C’mon, kiddo,” she whispers and gets up to help Ris stretch out on their sofa, head propped up by her prized Mars Attacks pillow. Root bought it for her when Ris had gone through her aliens phase.
Shaw grabs a blanket off the back of the couch and drapes it over her, then sits back down on the opposite end, Ris’s feet just barely grazing her legs. With one hand, she lowers the television’s volume while she texts Root a take-out order with the other. Something light, her fingers tap out.Easy for Ris to eat.
A half-minute later, she gets a reply - Be there in 20. Shaw’s lips quirk into a slight smile, and she focuses back on the movie while she waits. A few seconds later, she catches the sound of light snoring from Ris.
Sure enough, twenty minutes later exactly, Shaw hears a soft knock at her door and she pads over to answer.
Root grins at her as she steps inside, a pair of filled plastic bags hanging from each arm. “Your feast, m’dear,” she says with obvious humor.
Shaw rolls her eyes and snatches both of them. “Go see if she’ll wake up to eat something,” she mutters and stalks over to her bartop counter to start opening the various containers, finding broth and noodles and rice and, of course, two full cartons of chicken and beef just for her. She fights the grin. It’s been years and she’ll still never let Root have the satisfaction.
"Hey, Parisa," Shaw hears Root whisper from behind her. "You want to try some soup?"
She glances over her shoulder and watches Root stroke Ris’s hair, lightly brushing bangs off her sticky with sweat forehead. Whatever Ris’s answer is, it’s too quiet for Shaw to hear, but she quickly assumes negative when Root presses a kiss to Ris’s forehead and walks over to join Shaw. “Too sleepy?” she asks.
Root hums in the affirmative. “I think she’s running a bit of a fever.”
"I’ll put her to bed," Shaw says with a firm nod. "You grab some plates." She’s halfway across the room to Ris before she stops and turns back for a moment. "You’re staying, right?"
A smile is her only answer, but it’s the only one she needs anyway.
It’s several hours later, well into the middle of the night, when the cry jolts her awake. Shaw jerks upright, quilt pooling around her waist, and she listens intently, hopeful that it was just part of a dream. Beside her, Root shifts and mumbles a groggy, “What is it?”
Shaw replies with a quick shush, then she hears it again. Definitely coming from Ris’s room. She bolts out of bed, ignoring the “Sameen!” from Root, and staggers down the hall to the other bedroom. She can feel the cries within pounding through her veins as she throws the door open.
Ris’s eyes are closed and tears stream down her face. “Mom, it hurts!”
Shaw’s chest tightens, but she simultaneously feels Doctor Mode shifting into place and pushes herself to Ris’s bedside. “What hurts? Your stomach?”
"Everywhere!"
Sweat pinpricks across Shaw’s neck and she mops it away with her hand. “Okay, uh…” she stammers, tugging the comforter aside and running a quick glance over Ris’s body for any signs of external injury or obvious distress. She presses the backs of her fingers to Ris’s forehead. Clear fever. Drenched. Possibly dehydrated. Needs saline. Shaw growls at herself as she realizes she hasn’t kept any on-hand in years. Glass of water will have to do for now, probably more than—
A hand grips her by the arm and she whips around, ready to destroy whoever dares interrupt her diagnosis, and finds herself greeted by Root’s widened eyes. “Shaw,” she murmurs, glancing rapidly between her and Ris. “We need to just take her to the hospital.”
"I don’t need a hospital!" Shaw snaps, taking a step away from Root. "I need an IV and…and…" She stops to take a breath and covers her face with her hands, then exhales slowly. "You’re right, you’re right," she says, slightly muffled.
She feels more than sees Root step in close and rub her shoulders. “It’s going to be okay,” she murmurs. “I’ll go get us a cab.”
Shaw nods, and a chill creeps up her spine as Root steps away and out of the room. She shakes it off anyway and wraps a couple blankets around Ris, trying to not panic further at the sound of painful groans, and scoops her up into her arms. “It’s going to be okay,” she says, a repeat Root’s words that are almost more for her own sake than Ris’s. “It’s going to be okay…”
Root alternates between drumming her fingers against her pants, fiddling with the zipper on her leather jacket, and attempting to read some terribly dull Good Housekeeping magazine. Like she’ll ever need to know proper dinner party etiquette anyway. There’s a laptop sitting unattended in the chair next to her, and every few minutes she considers snatching it and hacking into the hospital database to find out something. It’s been an hour since a nurse hustled Shaw and Parisa through the doors to a room, and she’s heard nothing. So help her, if that blonde idiot behind the reception desk doesn’t give her an answer the next time she asks — in probably about five minutes — that pen she keeps clicking is going to become a deadly weapon.
That nurse is saved by the door slamming open and a haggard Shaw stepping through. Root tenses and leans forward, watching her eyes dart around the waiting room until they land on her. Her fingers clutch to the edge of her seat, knuckles turning white.
Shaw marches over before Root can push to her feet. “She’s okay,” she breathes after inhaling sharply. “Sleeping now.”
Root stands, but hestiates to reach out to Shaw in any measure of physical comfort. Instead she hugs her arms around herself. “Is there…” she starts to ask, then pauses and looks at the floor. Even after years of growing closeness, countless nights where one of them simply rolled over and fell asleep next to the other, she still needs Shaw to say what she needs without prompting. Without demanding.
"I need air," Shaw says, as though she reads Root’s mind completely, then turns and pushes through the door.
Root waits for several moments before heaving a sigh and following. She finds Shaw on the curb, knees pulled close to her chest and arms dangling limply at her sides. She can’t see much through the thickness of Shaw’s coat, but she knows anyway just how tense those muscles are right now. Root steps carefully over a puddle and perches next to her without a word.
Minutes pass, so many that Root just stops counting altogether, before either of them utter a word. “I can’t do this,” Shaw mutters, staring out across the parking lot before them.
Root doesn’t say anything in response. She understands Shaw well enough to know there must be a thousand and one thoughts all jumbled up and trying to escape, and Shaw needs to work through them one at a time without interruption. Root wraps her arms around her own knees and waits.
"I’m not cut out for all this," Shaw finally adds after a few more beats. "I’m just…not someone’s mom. Her mom."
The way Shaw looks at her pounds home to Root the next unspoken thought. You’re her mom. Root shakes her head and forces a smile. “I don’t think,” she begins, carefully navigating her own words under Shaw’s watchful eyes, “any of us individually would be all that great as a parent.” Root breaks the gaze to look at the ground, brushing absently at some lint on her pants. “But that’s why we’re all in this together, right?” Her voice wavers a bit. “She’s absolutely crazy about you, Sameen. You might not be the typical supermom, but you’re hers, and that’s all she needs you to be.”
Root doesn’t look back up, but she can still feel Shaw’s gaze on her, and after a scant few moments, a hand reaches out and takes hold of her own.
They don’t speak again. They don’t need to, Root realizes as their hands grasp each other tightly. A fleeting thought shoots through her mind, reminding her to text John and Harold about Parisa. Later, since it’s still almost the middle of the night and the situation’s under control. And Shaw needs her attention more at the moment.
She hears the door behind them whisk open and heels click on the concrete, and she glances behind her to find a nurse looking at them with a smile. Not the blonde one, she notes, who’s probably off decidedlynot doing her job. Root’ll get her fired tomorrow somehow. Maybe. The Machine will help her, she’s sure.
"Miss Shaw?" the nurse says. "She’s asking for you."
Shaw releases her hand and jumps to her feet faster than lightning, and Root’s only a hair slower in doing the same. They quickly follow the nurse inside and to Parisa’s room, but Shaw pauses in the doorway with Root right behind her. “It’s okay,” Root leans forward and whispers in her ear. “You’re hers.”
"Mom?" the quiet voice calls from within, and Root sees Shaw tense once more. She steps around Shaw and inside the room, but stays along the back wall away from the bed. She can see clearly now, and it pulls a smile to her lips.
Parisa’s eyes never leave Shaw, and her hand stretches out. “Mom?”
Root’s smile grows as she watches Shaw’s eyes widen, then dart back and forth between her and Parisa. She gives Shaw a slight nod, then leans back against the wall.
The momentary paralysis seems to fade, and Shaw’s legs propel her forward into the room and to Parisa’s bedside. “Hey, kiddo,” she chokes out, then swallows visibly. “I’m here.”